f r e s h s t a r t

Saturday, August 20, 2005

 

Thoughts on home: Being home

While the town I grew up in has grown since I left, for me it has grown smaller each year. Not just in comparison to my adopted city, but in the number of ways I interact with it. For me it is no longer the place where I have neighbors, colleagues, schoolmates, or enemies. It isn’t the place that I return to after a day of work, or after a night out with my friends. I (usually) choose the circumstances under which I visit, and the only people who know I’m here are the ones that I tell.

It’s become a very relaxing place for me—almost like the vacation town that you go back to year after year. I go for walks around town, drive to a nearby city to do some shopping, chat with the owner of the corner store who can’t believe that I’m all grown up. I read magazines that my mom subscribes to like O magazine and Better Homes and Gardens, sleep late, knit, watch movies, spend time with the family and forget about all of the real life stuff that awaits me back in Chicago—dishes, work, bills that I need to remember to pay.

This weekend is a little different. I came home because my dad is in the hospital. He has Crohn’s disease, and he had a bad flare-up early in the morning on Thursday. Over the past few days we’ve gone from thinking he would be out in two days after taking some medication, to thinking he would need surgery, to knowing that he’s going to try a five day intravenous steroid treatment to see if that will take care of the problem for now. I hate seeing him in the hospital, hate sitting around knowing that there is nothing I can do but be supportive. It also feels weird to have real life events happening here, although they obviously do every day—I’m just not here to be a part of it any more.

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